This course offers an introduction into the public economics theory. It does not aspire to cover theories of taxation, public expenditures, regulation etc. at length and in-depth. Rather, our ambition is to give a bird's-eye view of central themes of public economics and related disciplines, and teach concepts, logic, and ideas, rather than methods of analysis, which would require an entirely different course format.
Our choice of topics covered by the course reflects a trade-off between salience and centrality, on the one hand, and suitability for a brief online introductory course, on the other. The course content is neither comprehensive (which would be a "mission impossible" for virtually any public economics course"), nor representative of other such courses. With these limitations and caveats in mind, we encourage our students to continue their public economics studies in a more regular fashion, and see our role inter alia in motivating interest in such "continued education".
The central theme of the course is the role of government as a mechanism of resource allocation which complements and augments markets. Governments are viewed as public agencies set to correct market failures. Such agencies however are prone to failures of their own, and hence markets and governments are two imperfect alternatives. We deal with government's limitations, with particular emphasis on those that have to do with informational asymmetry, limited administrative capacity, and imperfect accountability to society. Otherwise the course's man themes are economics of taxation, regulation, politics of public economics, incentives in government, and government vis-à-vis (civil) society.
Do you have technical problems? Write to us: coursera@hse.ru

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De la lección

Government in a Market Economy

In this lecture we discuss reasons calling for government presence in market economies. We stress key advantages of markets over governments which make privately taken decisions highly efficient in the absence of externalities. The latter significantly distorts the work of market mechanism and lead to inefficient outcomes. We consider possible solutions to this inefficiency which are based either on coasean agreements or on public coercion (governements) and discuss conditions, advantages, and disadvantages related to these solutions.

Impartido por:

Leonid Polishchuk

Professor

Transcripción

[SOUND]. [MUSIC] Hello. The topic of this course is public economics. Public economics is a part of economics which deals with the wrong presence of government in economics and societies. As you know economists boldly take upon issues which are sometimes outside of the narrow confines of economics proper. Such as production, consumption, exchange if they feel that the methods of economics are applicable in these areas. Public economics actually is a good example of such expansion of public field of economic analysis because when we talk about governments and public economics as I said is about government's presence in economies. We necessarily touch upon issues and problems which are normally dealt by political scientists, legal experts, anthropologists, on and so forth. And expect that some of these disciplines will be reflected in our course. First of all, I would like to talk to you about why governments are present in modern economies and in market economies in particular. What are functions of governments? What are roles of governments? Why governments are required to complement markets. And a good way to discuss these issues is to view governments and markets as two alternative mechanisms of resource allocation. Let's recall definition of economics. Economics sometimes is defined as a science about resource allocation. Of the definition, which goes back to Adam Smith is that economics is a science about the wealth of nations. Let's combine these two definitions and discuss how resource allocation affects the wealth of nations. Nation's successes, prosperity or poverty, and demise are not necessarily predetermined by availability of resources. Some nations do very well despite of lack of resources, others have abundant resources, and despite that still poor and unstable and underdeveloped, so the availability of resources is not a key to success. In fact, as you might have heard, sometimes natural resources could be a source of serious problems, for it can only be politically developed, and this is something that is known as the resource curse. And in this course I expect to talk to you about the resource curse in due course among other things. But primarily successful nations are the nations that are able to allocate their resources properly. And as I said we have two mechanisms for resource allocation. The first one is market, another one is government. Market allocations are outcomes of individual decisions because in market economies decisions are made by private agents such as individuals, households, firms. This agent's own resources, they decide how these resources should be used. As opposed to markets, governments are publications, and they move resources by decrease, by commands. This is what is known as by fiat. So we have two alternative means of recourse allocation. The question is mine more than economists. These two means are combined with each other. They co-exist although in different proportions. And that means that probably they have some comparative advantages and comparative disadvantages and let's talk about what these advantages and disadvantages are and that will give us an opportunity to visualize the role of government in economies. Let us first talk about comparative disadvantages of market economies. Now market economies, as I said are economies based on private decision making and economic assets in market economies are predominantly privately owned. These two features of market economies per decision making in a private ownership are sources of two great advantages of market economies. The first one is incentives. And the second one is information. Incentives and market economies are based on private ownership. Private ownership in its turn is based on private property rights, and what are private property rights, or property rights in general? Economists define property rights as bundles of rights which include the right of control, the right to returns, and the right to transfer the above two rights among individuals. The right of controls means that private owners are free to do with their assets whatever they like. Of course there are some constraints, legal constraints, contractual constraints, but within these constraints you're free to use your assets the way you see it fit. On the other hand, the right returns is the right to keep the profit that you earned by using your assets. Assets generate some income, of course you incur some costs. And the difference between the income and the costs is your profit. And as private owner, you are [COUGH] entitled to keep the profit. And this combination of the control rights and of the return rights is a source of very powerful incentives. You decide what to do with your resource. And you are interested in putting this resource in the best possible use because that will maximize the profit. It internalizes decision making. And aligns this decision making with the needs of, with the objective of efficiency. Let's add to these informational advantages. People that own assets, that operate assets, they are usually the best informed about what is SSR? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What are the areas where these assets can be best used? So think of a wonderful combination of being informed, being able to act upon this information, and being interested in acting in the best possible way. What else to desire. And indeed as a result, markets are known for being very, very efficient in resource allocation. In particular, markets are believed to be more efficient in resource allocation than bureaucrats. because bureaucracies, like the market incentives, and often time they are less informed than market agents. And this is actually the rationale for privatization that swept much of the world in the late 20th century. In fact, appreciation and disappreciation of markets as an alternative to government exhibited considerable fluctuation in the course of recent history. The prevailing moods, the prevailing sentiments in the late 1970s, 1980s, and much of the 1990s was that markets are far superior to governments and therefore the motto of the day was privatization and deregulation in liberalization. In the developed world, the sentiments were usually linked with Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister in the United Kingdom. And US president Ronald Reagan. And they influenced a wave of reforms in the developing world, in the former communist world. And they produced sort of mixed results. And as a result, the prevailing thinking at the time that small government is beautiful and the less government you have is better. [COUGH] And government is a necessary evil that has to be confined to very narrow parts of the economy. I think today the pressures on with more balance than you see great appreciation of big, strong, and efficient governments. Of course on the one hand, the demise of communist command economist as very clearly illustrate what happens to nations that marginalize markets, they destroy markets that press markets out of their economist primarily for ideological reasons. Such economies were bound to fail, and they indeed failed just in the course of a few years. But the other extreme, that there is no place for government except for some very limited functions, is probably also not the best guidance. I will recall, a well known distinguished economist, who in the mid-1990's, in a private conversation said that everything that was not privatized has to be privatized. Because every public enterprise is bound to be inefficient, is bound to be corrupt, is bound to be inferior to private enterprises. And when he was asked by his colleagues, are there really any areas of societies or economies that should not be privatized? He thought quite a bit and he said, well probably yes, there is one. And this one is armed forces, because when people maximize profits using heavy armament, that's probably not a very good thing for the society. But, failing that, everything else has to be made private. Well as we know in reality, we have a combination of private markets and public governments. And they differ across societies and nations in different proportions. But if we use a crude measure of government's presence and economists and measured by the sheriff public sector of the budget in GDP, whereas from anywhere from 20% to over 50%. So and so in some economies, and their not the worst economies in the world, governments directly control half of the economy, and indirectly control the rest of the economy, and that means that probably governments have also their own advantages. Big governments are back and as I just told you the views of the 1980s and 1990s that the smaller the better have given way to greater appreciation of a government which is big and strong. So the big question now is what explains the persistent need for government in a free market economy? Societies make choices between different mechanisms of resource allocation. And social choices are different from the middle choice. They are far more complex, far more nuanced and controversial. But none the less, if one of the mechanisms of resource allocation such as market is unconditionally superior to governments than, little by little, if nothing else, by some process of natural selection, a governance would be driven out of life. As you see, exactly the opposite is happening, and that means that governments should probably also be considered as a means of resource allocation which under certain circumstances, is superior to markets. So the big question now is under what conditions governments are doing better than markets? Apparently governments have some advantages over markets and because of these advantages they're required to support markets, to augment markets, and sometimes to even replace the plan markets. [SOUND]